Gig review: Gogo Penguin, Oran Mor, Glasgow
Gogo Penguin | Rating: **** | Oran Mor, Glasgow
Perhaps not since Portico Quartet (now just plain Portico), with whom Gogo Penguin share the kudos of having been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize (in 2014 for their second album v2.0), has a British group grabbed attention by making music performed with the instrumentation and technical rigours of jazz, yet grounded in a whole variety of other disparate influences and bristling with accessible, hummable hooks and melodies.
There was deft classical flourish in pianist Chris Illingworth’s playing during the delicate introductory bars of opener All Res, the first number on Gogo Penguin’s new album Man Made Object. And yet when bassist’s Nick Blacka’s probing fret runs and drummer Rob Turner’s tightly skittering break-beats kicked in, the flavours were as much from techno and trip-hop.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdSo it went with Unspeakable World and Branches Break, the latter of which could just as well have been an electronic dance track with its sample-like piano motif and driving beat. The Letter inhabited a slower, more atmospheric space somewhere between a Radiohead ambient piano number and something from a moody film soundtrack. Garden Dog Barbecue brought flair and intensity to the show’s final phase, before an encore of the fluttering Hopopono closed, the most accomplished thing in Gogo Penguin’s increasingly handsome repertoire.